iCloud gets a lot of attention in reviews of iOS and OS X, and with good reason—it's one of Apple's biggest services, and with every new version of its desktop and mobile operating systems, iCloud expands to store just a bit more of your stuff.

The service works best if you're syncing data between iOS and OS X devices, but since iCloud's introduction in iOS 5 last year, Apple has also offered a Windows client for the service, and the company has issued an updated version to go with iOS 6. The original iCloud for Windows was a pretty basic client that offered just a portion of the OS X version's functionality, and that doesn't change in version 2.0, though it is streamlined and expanded a bit in ways that should appeal particularly to iOS users with Windows PCs on their desks.

iCloud for Windows: A primer

Windows users can't do anything with iCloud unless they own something with an Apple logo on it—either an iOS device that runs iOS 5 or higher or a Mac running Lion or Mountain Lion. Even then, the Windows version of iCloud can only access a subset of your iCloud data compared to your Apple devices—the original version could access your mail, contacts, calendars and tasks lists, your bookmarks, and your Photo Stream. You can also view and delete (but not open) documents stored by iCloud-aware applications like Pages and TextEdit, as well as your iOS device backups.

Enlarge/ iCloud for Windows looks and behaves much like a stripped-down version of the OS X iteration.

The main issue with iCloud for Windows is in its app dependencies—while the OS X version can assume that Mail and Calendar are installed on every Mac, the Windows version relies on Outlook 2007 or 2010 for access to your mail, calendars, tasks, and contacts, which means that (barring some sort of educational, business, or other discount) you need to shell out at least $140 (standalone) or $200 (Office Home and Business) for an e-mail client that can access your stuff; using the Web client built in to iCloud.com (or reverse-engineering the IMAP, CalDAV, and CardDAV server URLs for each service) are your only cheaper options.

The bookmarks sharing feature is similarly constrained—Internet Explorer and the possibly-defunct-but-still-technically-available Safari for Windows are the only compatible browsers, though at least the former option has the advantage of being built in to the operating system. But Photo Stream doesn't have any particular applications requirements; it simply dumps all pictures in your Photo Stream into a folder of your choice on the hard drive. If you want to upload photos to your stream, place them into your upload folder, the location of which is also user-configurable.

Photo Stream on Windows isn't as seamless as Photo Stream in either iOS or OS X—there's no automatic rotation for your images, for one, and deleting a photo from your hard drive doesn't actually delete it from your stream. Still, it's nice to have the basic functionality without tying it down to a particular program.

New features in version 2.0

In iCloud for Windows 2.0, the basic operation of the above features remains essentially unchanged. Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and Tasks are now enabled or disabled all at once, but the feature still requires Outlook 2007 or 2010 to function. The same is true for Bookmarks, which still requires Internet Explorer or Safari for Windows.

Photo Streams and Shared Photo Streams can be enabled separately.

Other than general bug fixes and performance enhancements, the largest functional improvement to iCloud on Windows is its Photo Stream support—Photo Stream integration has improved a bit, and you can also access Photo Streams that have been shared with you by other iCloud users.

There's now a Photo Stream link in Windows Explorer that gives you easy access to your stream from any Explorer window with the Favorites menu shown. Clicking it will display an Explorer window that shows your stream and any streams that have been shared with you.

Enlarge/ Photo Streams show up as such in Windows Explorer now. Previously you'd have to navigate to a designated folder to see your pictures.

Unfortunately, uploading photos to your stream still requires a trip to your designated Photo Stream folder—moving photos directly into your stream still doesn't do anything, and deleting photos from your stream in Windows doesn't delete them across all of your iCloud-connected devices. The improved Explorer integration is a net gain, but it's a shame that uploading and deleting photos isn't equally smooth.

No other major iCloud features have been added to Windows—as of iOS 6, iCloud.com has gained the ability to view Notes and Reminders (and the iCloud system tray icon has gained a link that will send you directly to iCloud.com without requiring an additional login), but you still can't access data stored in iCloud by any applications other than the iWork apps, and Windows applications still have no system by which applications like Word and Excel can access your iCloud storage directly. Your data is there and you can get at most of it, but things are far from seamless.

Conclusions

iCloud for Windows remains an effort aimed mostly at iOS users who also have Windows PCs. Between the new Control Panel and iCloud.com, it's possible for these people to keep their mail, calendars, contacts, reminders, notes, and iWork documents accessible, but it works less well alongside Macs, especially since neither the Windows control panel nor the Web portal allow you to access documents and data created in applications that aren't Pages, Numbers, or Keynote.

None of this is surprising—why would Apple give one of its ecosystem's banner features to Windows users for free? But it's worth noting that all versions of iCloud aren't created equal. Depending, of course, or what applications you use regularly, using iCloud on Mountain Lion and iOS 6 means keeping much of your data seamlessly synchronized between your desktop, laptop, phone, and tablet. Using iCloud for Windows means that you'll be able to get at most of the stuff on your phone or tablet, but you definitely won't benefit from the deep and more seamless integration with applications that you see in OS X.

Hopefully this fixes the Photo Stream upload issues on Windows. My father was constantly asking me why the photos he put into the "Upload" folder under his Photo Stream folder would never actually be uploaded into the stream. I looked at it for quite awhile and couldn't figure out why it simply wouldn't work.

you still can't access data stored in iCloud by any applications other than the iWork apps, and Windows applications still have no system by which applications like Word and Excel can access your iCloud storage directly.

Actually, there is a way to mirror your documents stored in iCloud to a folder in your user profile. Everything you put (or delete) there will get synced to the cloud and all your devices.

DISCLAIMER: I have done this with the previous version of iCloud (1.1), and it may or may not work with the current one.DISCLAIMER 2: The steps to enable document syncing are quite fiddly and involve running commands in the DOS prompt and manually editing plist files, with several people reporting that they couldn't get it to work.

I have Skydrive on my PC. Still haven't found any use for it. Where are the preferences/share options or anything?

I'll stick with Dropbox.

Though not integrated in the explorer plugin, you can share files or folders via skydrive.com. You can send people a mail, push a link to facebook or just create an url. If the receivers have a skydrive account, they'll see the shared items in the 'Shared' section of skydrive.com as well. You can also great groups of people to make repeated sharing to the same group of people easier.

The SkyDrive app for Windows 8 will have those features build in as well, I suppose.

Edit: the webapp even gives remote access to all your files on your pc's.

I have Skydrive on my PC. Still haven't found any use for it. Where are the preferences/share options or anything?

I'll stick with Dropbox.

Though not integrated in the explorer plugin, you can share files or folders via skydrive.com. You can send people a mail, push a link to facebook or just create an url. If the receivers have a skydrive account, they'll see the shared items in the 'Shared' section of skydrive.com as well. You can also great groups of people to make repeated sharing to the same group of people easier.

The SkyDrive app for Windows 8 will have those features build in as well, I suppose.

Edit: the webapp even gives remote access to all your files on your pc's.

SkyDrive beats iCloud any day. I even have the Mac version of SkyDrive set up on my MacBook. It works perfectly, much better than iCloud on Windows. (Dropbox is an excellent option too.)

Better option still. Use google apps/gmail and get contacts, mail, calendar available anywhere with a web browser and native device app integration on iOS and android. Use Dropbox or skydrive for everything else.

Nice to see an update, I just hope they've finally fixed the issues with multiple sharing (my iCloud calendar syncs to Outlook, and from there to my non iOS phone), and the fact that many error messages seem to be in German…

So basically, if you want full integration you've gotta be using Apple's desktops/notebooks. Can't really fault Apple for that, but this trend of vertical integration (especially reflected by Windows 8 and its phone counterparts) is a little worrying indeed.

The previous version was a literal nightmare. It would MOVE all appointments and contacts into new "on iCloud" calendar and address books, destroying your Outlook pst file. Outlook, however, would continue to default ONLY to the originals.

An attempt to move everything back and then delete them from the Apple service might result in sending out meeting cancelations from long ago!!! Very professional.

Have ANY of these issues been resolved? A simple search of "Outlook" and "iCloud" will result in pages of past issues.

The main difference between this update and the previous one is that they have merged Mail, Contacts, Calenders, and tasks. This could be selected individually before, which is much better. Especially if you share account with multiple users on a little business, for example if you share calendar. This update sucks ....

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.